Several of the voyagers had been quietly admiring the low-lying banks of soft cirrus clouds, and some had been engaged in absent-mindedly watching the man servant arrange the tea table, when the Swede exploded his complaint in a loud thunderous tone.
Mr. Dalken gave a start. He was too surprised at the unlooked for complaint to control the nervous action. He frowned at the ponderous youth, then waved him away. Turning to the other man he told him to serve; then he followed the wondering Swede down the promenade deck to the culinary quarters.
As Mr. Dalken disappeared to view, Elizabeth smiled a tantalizing smile and remarked, to no one in particular: “Dear me! I cannot understand why Daddy engages such inexperienced servants. He always did neglect important things.”
An ominous silence followed this information from Elizabeth, then Mr. Ashby gayly proposed a diversion which interested his friends till Mr. Dalken rejoined the group.
Not having heard his daughter’s criticism Mr. Dalken reseated himself and smiled as he began: “I investigated the cause of that young chap’s complaint, because I could not very well consent to his walking back home—not on the water, you know. And I discovered a most amusing affair back in the kitchen. Want to hear the tale?”
Every one but Elizabeth signified eagerly a desire to hear the story. She pretended indifference to her father and his experience in the kitchen. But he did not see her face and laughingly began his narrative.
“I learned that the Chef treats the crew with unusual consideration by serving the same quality tea that we drink. That poor Scandinavian lad had never before sailed with a decent crew, it seems. In the past he has been the butt for all the deep-sea sailors who sailed from their Swedish ports on tramp steamers or fishing boats.
“Captain Blake tells me that Jansen is a fine youth and very conscientious, but too blunt for his own good. In his past experiences he has only had the cheapest black coffee served, or a weak sort of bitter drink faintly colored that went by the name of tea. The Captain explained to me that such tea is made from used tea-leaves which are dried by enterprising men and stained with chemicals to produce a brown liquid with a strong flavor. Naturally, he said, such second-hand tea leaves are not any too clean. The driers do not spend time on seeing to it that the leaves are kept free from vermin and dirt. Hence it often happens that sailors find unexpected dregs mixed with their tea leaves in the bottom of the pannikins in which they receive their measure of so-called tea.”
As Mr. Dalken reached this part of his story Elizabeth gave a shudder and exclaimed in a horror-stricken tone: “Oh, Daddy! How can you be so ordinary as to speak of such horrible things? Any one would think you were just common. What does it matter to us whether these plebeian seamen drink tea or salt water, as long as we are not subjected to their coarse modes of living?”
Mr. Dalken turned to stare at Elizabeth, and his frown should have warned her of further pursuing such a line of condemnation. But Elizabeth was bent on punishing her father for having made her—so she deemed it—the laughing stock of his friends by sending in a doctor who gave her licorice water to cure a serious attack of cerebral neuritis, though Elizabeth was not quite sure what such a dreadful disease was.